A1GP
A1 Team Lebanon were out on track today for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in Sydney, Australia, with the event being held at Eastern Creek Raceway, 40 kilometres from the city centre. The Australian round opened with two diverse practice sessions. The morning rookie period of racing action took place in wet weather with drizzling rain, while the afternoon was dry with bright sunshine warming the track and consequently lowering the lap times.
In the morning the Lebanese team, with Alex Khateeb driving, concentrated on routine engineering tasks following an engine change prior to the race weekend. After completing a number of installation laps and systems checks, the team started to focus on developing the car set up for the wet conditions, finishing 15th fastest at the end of the morning.
The afternoon session, with its drier track, changed the setup requirements and the team began to develop the A1 Team Lebanon car. A clear hour of running gave the team plenty of data to review prior to the final practice session tomorrow morning and afternoon qualifying later in the afternoon.
Khateeb said at the end of his first runs at the Eastern Creek track, “I hadn’t driven this track in the A1GP car, so first I had to understand the braking points and the characteristics of it. Alongside this, during the morning practice, we spent much of the time on engineering aspects of race preparation. In the afternoon we were able to start working on setup and we made some progress over the course of the hour session. I’m comfortable with the car, now I just need to build my confidence and start to make progress, although I’m still aware that this is only my second full weekend of driving, while nearly all of the others have had much more experience. â€
Martin Dixon, Team Manager, A1 Team Lebanon added, “The team is working well together with Alex and although it’s still early in the weekend, we’re seeing him make improvements. We’re taking it a step at a time as we all work towards the races on Sunday. He coped well with the wet, slippery track this morning while also handling our routine tasks at the beginning of the session. This afternoon he drove well on the tyres, both new and used and it was good to be running ahead of the Australian car for much of the session, until they put on new tyres towards the end of the day. â€
A1 Team Lebanon will continue preparations for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, Sydney, Australia, Sprint and Feature races tomorrow. Final practice and qualifying sessions will determine the grid for the Sprint race. This 20 minute race, with a rolling start, takes place at 11.00am local time, with the Feature race, a 70 minutes race that features a standing start and mandatory tyre stop, commencing at 3.00pm local time.
